Now you can see the Top 10 for each hitting category for the last decade. Any surprises? Does it say anything about the Astros in the decade?

PRR and Bill Holmes prompted me to take a look at some stats last week and I noticed some interesting figures from last decade. So, for the next few days, let’s take a look back some statistics from the previous 10 years.

And, why not have some fun along with it. I’ve listed the top 10 statistics in certain hitting categories for the last decade and left blank some of the players who reached those numbers. No fair peeking or going to the statistical websites.

To be fair to those playing by the rules, I won’t publish any entries that appear to have the answers from research until after the answers are revealed.

Yes, decade stats don’t tell an entire story because some players only played part of a decade due to careers ending (or beginning) or injuries. But, you’ll likely be surprised at some of these numbers and they could be telling as to why the Astros have been down at least the last half of the decade.

RBI Leaders

1.

Berkman

1026

2.

Bagwell

578

3.

Biggio

469

4.

Hidalgo

368

5.

Ensberg

335

6.

Lee

321

7.

Ausmus

297

8.

Pence

224

9.

Alou

222

10.

Everett

214

Stolen Base Leaders

1.

Bourn

102

2.

Berkman

74

3.

Taveras

68

3.

Biggio

68

5.

Everett

59

6.

Lugo

45

7.

Bagwell

44

8.

Matsui

39

9.

Pence

36

10.

Hidalgo

32

The Astros have pointed several times this decade to pitching, speed and defense, yet the list of stolen base leaders this decade has only one player who has stolen more than 100 bases. When you think about it, a good base stealer would need only two or three good seasons to reach the century mark. Is the fact that only one player stole more than 74 bases this decade revealing?

The other three categories also exposes the dearth of offense over the last 4-5 years. Consider, for example, that of the top five leaders in runs scored, only two of them played for the Astros after 2005.

So as you enjoy trying to match names with numbers from the decade, consider also if these statistics mean anything in the overall scheme of things.

You’ll obviously find places to put names like Biggio, Bagwell and Berkman. Some names you may be surprised match some of the numbers on the decade leaderboard include Ausmus, Everett, Lugo and Lane.

I’ll begin adding in some of the answers — one by one in red — late Monday evening. On Wednesday, we’ll take a look at pitching stats from the last decade.

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25 Responses

That contract will haunt the Cards like Lee’s does us today. In spite of the fact that Lee is one of the best and most consistent run producers in baseball, his contract, next to the owner, is the biggest detriment to this team getting better. In three years do you think the Cardinal fans will be describing Holliday as “one of the game’s best and most consistent run producers”?

There’s nothing wrong with believing in your team. My main concern is we lack starting pitching depth, we have no back up plan if Tommy fails, and we can’t hit the broad side of a barn.

I just get really tired of hearing how much other teams are improving and then when I see the Astros in a headline it’s attached to Josh Banks.

What seperates the Astros from great organizations is their unwillingness to admit failure. The great organizations will cut their losses and move on when something isn’t working. Not the Astros! They’d rather fail time and time again rather than admit defeat.

The Astros are missing a great opportunity to add cheap one year free agents that will have trade value at the deadline. I’m pretty sure that they would be able to get a descent return for guys like Orlando Hudson, Rod Barajas, or Orlando Cabera. Did anyone think we would get a prospect like Matt Nevarez for Pudge?

If we’re going to rebuild the farm fast without trading our big three then we need to do it through cheap one year free agents with value.

Sorry guys, but I am just a passionate fan who loves this team but i hate that we have become the laughing stock of baseball.

I really don’t think that the Cards are done adding this offseason. I hate to say it, but I have a feeling that we are going to see Miggy in a Cards uniform.

Great organizations do what it takes to win, and oraganizatons like the Red Sox and Cards do just that. I guarantee you that this two organizations do not have any trouble selling out games.

I have a feeling that we’re going to be chasing the Pirates all year for last place. The one thing that I’m looking forward to this year is waching Bud pitch, and hopefully seeing Jason Castro at some time. Other than that there’s not alot to be excited about. Oh, and the day that Ed Wade gets fired. I can’t wait for that day.

It’s sad too, I really think Ed Wade would be a great team president, but he makes a horrible GM. You don’t get an award for the worst GM named after you for no reason.

Brunt never got enough chances to steal that many – but the ones he did get where usually important!

Flash – every team has them, the difference is the level those two achieved was indicative of having “found it” as opposed to being at the edge of the cliff. A great example, all be it across a much shorter time – Astros new NRI MiLB contract guy C Shelton had one incrdible month for DET – within that month he had a career week (6 HR) – but flamed out badly that same season. He hit very well for SEA at Tacoma last season, and he is listed as a 3B/1B – so he might be insurance and another potential power bat.

I still do not understand the Michaels signing – but its cheap enough that dropping him does really hurt. He did hit better in the second half – but nothing like he did in PIT. (Sorry to interject that into the fun.)

Good question on other young players who flame out either due to injury or the league figures them out. I think it happens in every organization – just off the top of my head I can picture players like Jeff Francoeur of the Braves, Eric Chavez of the A’s and even someone like Chad Tracy of the D’Backs who had promising beginnings and then fell partially or totally off of the horse.

One of the questions in relation to a lot of these players is – did the change in steroids testing expose any of these folks to changes in their performance or even the inability to have their bodies repair itself.

I guess we will never know what changed with a these players – but it is a shame to see good or great years followed by career decay or end.

I really enjoyed Ensberg and hoped that he could come back successfully with someone – but it was not to be.

“Flip-flop Mo and Doggie for RBI. The rest you have correct Bill Holmes. Chris Burke had 31 steals (he’s number 11) – I never added up Doggies steals…”

Good thing I didn’t remember Burke or I would have guessed him for that last steal slot. Of course it’s a bit easier to guess these things when most of the slots are filled in.

I was helped by a couple of memories and associations – I knew that Doggie had a couple of decent years that paled to the monster one, so we tend to forget it. Also saw that Alou was on the HR list with two seasons so I knew he was over 200 RBI. (I am still PO’d that we did not bring Alou back – what a three year run he had here!)

The Berkman SB was an easy guess since I knew he played all ten years, but Doggie was a crapshoot. I went with longetivity (and knowing that Lane and Ensberg weren’t fleet). I almost said Bruntlett, though.

I don’t follow other teams close enough to notice, but do other teams have examples of players like Ensberg and Hidalgo? They were on the verge of being superstars and just lost it, especially Ensberg.

Flip-flop Mo and Doggie for RBI. The rest you have correct Bill Holmes. Chris Burke had 31 steals (he’s number 11) – I never added up Doggies steals (DUH) – the data I used was not deliniated by decade and RH played before 2000 – so you can’t just use his HOU totals.

Meiczylaw – that was my point, veiled as it was.

I promise I didn’t look at any pitcher data yet – I have a feeling I’m really going to suck on those!

Bagwell is probably the best baserunner the team has ever had. I agree with Dan P. One of my biggest problems with Cooper is that he never seemed to grasp the risk/reward of sending runners (and many, many other things). I suspect this will be a strength of Brad Mills.

Interesting discussion about the “speed” factor. I thought that two of the X factors with Bagwell were the fact that he was such a good baserunner and base stealer with pedestrian speed and his superior ability as a right hand 1B (prior to shoulder problems) to gun down front end runners on bunts and other force plays.

With the 2009 Astros – the only two players that should have been given a greeen light based on % chance of success would have been Bourn and Kazmat. Though Pence may be faster than Kazmat – Hunter was only successful 56% of the time while the much maligned Kazmat led the team with a 86% success rate. We gave up a lot of outs last year on the base paths and need to get that under control this time around.

Good points Flash and Chip – the interesting thing about speed is that a guy like KazMat has plus speed, but isn’t a base stealer, where a guy like Abrue has avg speed but gets 15+ steals per year. But, you would think that any players with more than 5 years in the decade would have more than 50 steals if they have decent speed.

Chip – interesting questions to ponder on a very un-baseball like winter day. The hardest part is to remember how long during the decade did some of these men played for us. It is funny to see names that seem so distant past – but were only a few years ago.

On the subject of PS&D, the speed component has less to do with SB’s than with the ability to go first to second, cut balls off in the gaps, and beat out out infield hits. You can build an offense around speed without utilizing the stolen base. In fact I would prefer it be done like that.

[Agreed on the speed comment, but over the course of a decade, you'd figure that the speed factor might translate into more SBs. On a related note, Bagwell was the prototype baserunner who didn't have great speed. CB]